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The Ultimate Guide to Buying Music Royalties TABLE of CONTENTS The Ultimate Guide to Buying Music Royalties TABLE OF CONTENTS What is Royalty Exchange? Introduction ......................................................................................................... 03 Part One: Royalties and the State of the Music Industry Chapter 01: Why Music Royalties? .................................................................. 05 Part Two: How Intellectual Property Generates Royalties Chapter 02: Copyrights and Royalty Streams .................................................14 Chapter 03: How Are Royalties Collected? ..................................................... 22 Part Three: Buying and Owning Royalties Chapter 04: How to Value Royalty Streams ................................................... 28 Chapter 05: Conducting Due Diligence ........................................................... 35 Part Four: How Royalty Exchange Changed an Illiquid Market Chapter 06: Why Artists Sell Royalties ........................................................... 43 Chapter 07: Recent Auctions on Royalty Exchange ....................................... 48 Chapter 08: Why Buy Royalties on Royalty Exchange? ................................. 53 1 What Is Royalty Exchange? Royalty Exchange is the leading online platform for buying and selling royalties. We offer a centralized, open marketplace to conduct royalty auctions, bringing transparency to an historically private process. The result maximizes value for royalty owners and provides a standardized and secure alternative investment opportunity for buyers and investors. Originally founded in 2011 and privately held, Royalty Exchange is based in Denver, CO. What Investors Are Saying About Buying and Owning Royalties “I’m more of an active investor. I bid on music assets with the copyrights which allow me to help grow the royalty stream.” - Steven McClintock “I watched things for a month or so to make sure I understood how it worked. Now I’m confident I’ve found great diversification and steady cash flow income for my portfolio.” - Curtis Johnson “One of the smartest investments I’ve ever made. Now, the checks just show up and I get a good return without the work of most other investments.” - Ida Varshasky “This is the next big thing, and you’re going to see it explode, with these guys leading the charge.” -Jonathan Hoenig, hedge fund manager 2 Introduction Intellectual property assets with a strong track record of consistent royalty earnings may be a perfect investment opportunity. What are royalty earnings? They are payments made to the owner of intellectual property every time third parties use or license the asset. IP owners collect royalties over and over again for an asset that someone created one time. Here’s an example. Take a minute and imagine that you write songs for a living. Some of these songs appear in comedy films, watched by movie goers all around the world. Over time, these films become classics, regularly watched on basic cable and channels like HBO and Showtime. Imagine that one of the movies – still airing more than 20 years after its theatrical release – plays on television several times each month. Fans also watch these films on streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. They buy digital copies on iTunes or Amazon Prime. Or they purchase DVDs. Each time these films are viewed or bought, the owner of the royalties for these songs gets paid. Now, you can stop imagining. As it turns out, this is a real story. It’s what happened to songwriter Billy Goodrum. His original music appeared in the Jim Carrey hit comedy “Dumb and Dumber” (1994), and he also wrote songs for other popular films like “Shallow Hal” and “There’s Something About Mary.” Collectively, he’s earned $22,000 annually, and his music has generated income every year since it first appeared on the silver screen. Even better – the income streams tied to these assets increased at a 15% rate each year from 2011 to 2015. Now, if you’re not an artist or songwriter, you probably haven’t enjoyed the benefits of intellectual property investment. But it’s something that you should seriously consider. Think about what would make a perfect investment: ● Could it offer strong yields? ● Could it offer the upside of value appreciation? ● Could it reduce your risk and exposure to volatile equity markets? ● Could it offer long-term returns, possibly decades after you buy it? 3 If you’re interested in all four qualities, you can find them in music royalties. And here’s the cherry on top: This is one of the most fun and unique investments on the planet. Just think about turning on Pandora or Spotify and hearing “your song.” Since you own the intellectual property, you’re getting paid royalties from different third parties. A small smile may form because this song pays you money each time you hear it. And when you own intellectual property, it’s yours - profit, rights, and all. As we explain in this guide, some major trends are emerging that will make the music and entertainment industries very attractive marketplaces for intellectual property owners in the years ahead. At Royalty Exchange, we aim to boost awareness and provide education on how royalties work and why they make a great investment. We operate in an open marketplace with established standards and quantifiable results. And we’re excited to build a robust platform that unites artists and investors. That’s why we created The Ultimate Guide to Buying Music Royalties. This guide offers you a deep dive into the world of intellectual property ownership in the music industry – insight you won’t find anywhere else. You’ll learn the opportunities, risks, terminology and major players in the royalty space. You’ll learn how music copyrights offer unique returns for investors. You’ll learn common ways that investors value this alternative asset. Best of all, we’ll show you how and where to tap into the billions in new royalty revenues awaiting investors in the next five years.1 Let’s get started. 1. Statista via PWC http://www.statista.com/statistics/259980/music-industry-revenue-in-the-us/ 4 Part One – Royalties and the State of the Music Industry Part One: Royalties and the State of the Music Industry CHAPTER 01 Why Music Royalties? The Ultimate Guide to Buying Music Royalties 5 Part One – Royalties and the State of the Music Industry Music royalties are unique because they are considered “alternative assets.” They are much different than traditional stocks, bonds, and cash investments. They are also less frequently tracked by retail or institutional investors. They don’t receive much attention from CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, or the mainstream financial media. You can’t track their performance on Bloomberg Terminals or TD Ameritrade. But that doesn’t mean that the industry hasn’t seen an increase from new interested buyers, including alternative investment managers in the private equity and hedge fund industries, high-net-worth individuals, and accredited investors. What you might not know is that intellectual property – sometimes called “Intangible Assets” – are the most valuable asset class in the world today. The value of all combined intellectual property in the United States today is worth at least $5.8 trillion, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.2 That is more than the nominal GDP of any other nation. However, knowing how to exploit these assets remains one of the biggest challenges for investors and businesses without proper guidance or understanding how they generate income. Returns on investment for this alternative asset class are best defined as royalties paid directly to the owners of intellectual property. Royalties work like this: The owner of a royalty has the right to license the asset – in the case of music, a song or portfolio of songs – to third parties. These third parties then have to pay the royalty owner any time they use it. In the music business, there are various organizations in charge of collecting royalties who obtain payments from these parties, and distribute them at specific time periods to the intellectual property owners. Royalties can be paid annually, quarterly, or on a monthly basis. Royalties Offer Direct Access to Industry Revenues For a long time, few investors were able to get in on the income generated in this industry. There isn’t a New York Stock Exchange for royalties. If someone wanted to buy these assets, they typically needed to take part in backroom deals between insiders and artists. 2 http://www.theglobalipcenter.com/resources/why-is-ip-important/ The Ultimate Guide to Buying Music Royalties 6 Part One – Royalties and the State of the Music Industry The only way to profit from the music business outside of this is owning stock in a firm like Sony – the parent of the Sony Music Entertainment – or a rival company that owns and operates a music production division. Unfortunately, these global entertainment giants don’t provide clear access to music industry revenues. They have many different subsidiaries, products, and services that impact the company’s bottom line and stock performance. That’s what make music royalties such a unique investment. Music royalties offer direct exposure to revenue streams generated by music consumption. In 2013, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) collected more than $8.8 billion in royalties on behalf of artists and musicians around the globe, according to to the organization’s 2015 Global Collections Report.3 Royalties Are Not Rare Assets When you own rights or a percentage of a royalty stream tied to a song or catalog of songs, you collect revenue every time they are streamed, played, downloaded, or covered. When a song you own the rights to plays on Spotify, you receive a royalty. When someone downloads that song on Apple Music, the tech giant pays a royalty to you – the owner. But royalty payments for intellectual property owners are not unique to the music industry. Royalty streams exist in the energy sector, as payments to the rights to oil, gas, and solar energy production. They’re common in the healthcare industry on patents and medical devices.
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